John Oliver Killens has had a major influence on Afro-American literature. First, he has written steadily; to date he has published four novels, two children's books, a collection of essays, three plays, and two screenplays. In addition to these book-length manuscripts, Killens has published essays and short stories in such popular and scholarly periodicals as the Saturday Evening Post, Redbook, the New York Times Magazine, the Black Scholar, and Black World. He also has written a novel based on the life of Pushkin, which has not yet been published.

A second way in which Killens has influenced Afro-American literature has been through his encouragement of other Afro-American writers. He has served as writer-in-residence at Fisk University, Howard University, and Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn. Killens's interest in writers' workshops extended outside the university setting. In the late 1940s he joined John Henrik Clarke, Rosa Guy, and Walter Christmas...